Young Darlin' Cleek (Lauryn Canny), last seen being led into the woods at perhaps age six by the feral cannibal woman from OFFSPRING (20o9) and THE WOMAN (2011), is now around fifteen years old and utterly animalistic. Her adoptive mother (Pollyanna McIntosh) leads her out of the wilderness and drops her off at a hospital, where Darlin' is befriended by a kindly gay nurse (Cooper Andrews) who looks after her. While the nameless feral woman observes Darlin's progress from concealment, it is determined that Darlin's needs would best be served by placing her in St. Philomena's, a Catholic boarding school for girls, where the facility's Bishop (Bryan Batt) seeks to publicize his intention of civilizing the wild girl, thus casting the school in a good light and ensuring its ongoing operations.
Over several months at the school, Darlin' is slowly reeducated on how to be human, learning to talk and read thanks to steady biblical instruction from the nuns, and she expresses her desire to rid herself of the Devil because, as she puts it, if she doesn't get rid of him, the Devil will come out of her body of his own accord and she will die in the process.
Over the months of her readjustment, Darlin's fear of the Devil leads her to absorb Catholicism and blindly trust the Bishop, but it is made quite clear that the girls of the school all fear the Bishop, especially when sent to see him behind the locked door of his office. While all of this is going on, Darlin's feral mother searches for Darlin', which is chronicled in her own mini-narrative wherein she kills and feasts upon a number victims. There are mysterious flashbacks that slowly piece together the events leading to Darlin' being dropped off at the hospital, answers to what became of Peggy ((Darlin's pregnant older sister from the previous film)), vile revelations about the Bishop, and Darlin's very memorable first communion as the narrative works its way to its climax.
When I chose the films I would watch for this year's round of horror movie essays, I knew that THE WOMAN was the sequel to OFFSPRING, so I watched the two in sequence. What I did not know was DARLIN' existed and what we have is a feral cannibal trilogy. But while the first two entries are both very strong and satisfying shockers, DARLIN' is the slowest of slow-burn social commentaries with only occasional lapses into conventional horror. Written and directed by Pollyanna McIntosh, who portrayed the names feral woman in all three installments, the film is another indictment of the patriarchy, this time in the form of the Catholic church and its exploitation and abuse of the children in its care. It's not the first time that the horror genre has addressed the issues of the Church, nor is it in any way subtle about what its writer-director has to say on the subject.
Those expecting a more visceral experience along the lines of the first two films will likely be disappointed, as the real thrust of the horrors depicted is all Church-related, with only occasional forays back to the trilogy's gory cannibal elements, though those are toned down from the previous films by a considerable degree. In fact I would say that the script does a better job of taming the cannibal antics than the the Bishop does. DARLIN' is slow-moving and unsettling, which is wholly appropriate for a story about a girl trapped and getting "reeducated" in what amounts to one perverted authority figure's personal cookie jar of underage pussy, but overall I found it to be an unnecessary and largely un-engrossing sequel, despite its crafter's well-intentioned social commentary. I know a lot of you out there are completists when it comes to trilogies, but take my advice and give this one a miss.
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